LeFlore County Sheriff Plans Toward Progress

The new LeFlore County sheriff said his plans to better protect the county are in effect and that he will continue pushing the department to improve.

The new LeFlore County sheriff said his plans to better protect the county are in effect and that he will continue pushing the department to improve.

Rob Seale, 58, officially began duties in January, and he said he’s worked to implement his vision by getting out in the field and working alongside his deputies.

“I want to lead by example,” Seale said.

Law enforcement has always been an major presence in Seale’s life.

Seale’s father, Bill Seale, was the Poteau police chief for 21 years and was a deputy sheriff for the LeFlore County Sheriff’s Office, serving under Sheriff Jack Craig in the 1960s.

“I kind of patterned myself after him,” Seale said. “It set the stage for me to follow in his footsteps in law enforcement.”

After studying criminal justice at Northeastern State University, Seale began work as an investigative clerk for the FBI in Oklahoma City.

“After a couple years of working up there and waiting to go to the (FBI) Academy to be an agent, I decided the federal side of law enforcement was not where I wanted to be,” Seale said.

He joined the Marine Corps in 1977. “I intended to do only one hitch in the Marine Corps but stayed in 12½ years, from January 1977 to 1989,” he said.

There, Seale had the opportunity to become a counter-intelligence officer.

“I’ve traveled to every continent in the world except Antarctica at one time or another,” he said. “I have had the opportunity to see a wide variety of cultures and people.”

It was Seale’s task to interact with people from various cultures and gather information pertinent to his investigations.

Seale said he and his colleagues immersed themselves in the culture of each country.

“We learned rapidly how to deal with different cultures and different personalities and how to get along with those different people,” he said. “That is a skill that has served me well over the years in my law enforcement career — to be able to interact with people and empathize with people to get the information you need for your investigation.”

In 1983, Seale married wife Becky, and they went on to have children. Seale said a need to be closer to his family drew him away from the Marine Corps.

Seale said he cherishes his military service.

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” he said. “It changes your outlook on life. You go to some of the places and it makes you appreciate what you have in life.”

New Career

In 1989, Seale started running the child support enforcement division for the LeFlore County District Attorney’s Office.

Seale said he applied the investigative skills he developed as a counter-intelligence officer.

“You’re dealing with people, not only the women who came in and filed complaints, but the defendants,” Seale said. “A lot of them are trying to hide, and a lot of investigative skills were required.”

Seale then became a patrol officer with the Poteau Police Department.

Though he grew up in Poteau, Seale had been traveling the world for several years. When he joined Poteau police, he had been back in the city for only 2½ years.

“Poteau had grown quite a bit in the time I had been gone, (but) there were a lot of people I still remembered and a lot of classmates from high school and college in the area, as well as family friends,” he said. “They would say to me, ‘I always knew you would come back and follow in your father’s footsteps.’”

“I didn’t take the promotions because I felt like it would take me from the street, where I needed to be,” Seale said. “I wanted to stay out on the street and do my thing out there.”

Bid For Sheriff

In 2012, Seale retired from the Police Department and put in a bid for sheriff.

LeFlore Undersheriff Kendall Morgan ran against Seale in the Democratic primary. Morgan, former chief of the Shady Point Police Department, said after Seale won the primary, also defeating Eric Helms and and then-Sheriff Bruce Curnutt, Seale asked for Morgan’s help in the general-election campaign. Seale defeated Republican Billy Shropshire in the general election.

“I’m really glad it ended up the way it did because I believe I’m going to learn a lot from Rob and his experience,” Morgan said. “I’ve already learned a lot from him.”

Seale said he campaigned door to door, even in the most rural parts of the county.

“I couldn’t tell you how many doors I knocked on in rural LeFlore County,” he said. “I was letting folks know, ‘I know you’re out here, and I know services are needed out here.’”

Seale said with 10 deputies on staff, providing patrols to the 1,680 square miles of the county, much of which is rugged terrain, is challenging. However, he said, he has been pushing them to be on top of the job, and deputies have stepped up and met the challenge.

“(I have received) a lot of good phones calls from people saying, ‘We’re very pleased with the jobs the deputies are doing,’ and that they’re seeing deputies in places they haven’t seen them before,” he said. “It makes me really feel good about my people.”

Sheriff’s Goals

Seale said he wants to double the number of deputies at the Sheriff’s Office but a new sales tax would be necessary to afford more personnel.

“Will that come to fruition this year? Probably not, (because) people are tired of taxes. I’m tired of taxes,” he said. “But maybe next year we’ll be able to do that. … I feel that if they see the tax dollars is money well spent and something that’s going to benefit them, they’re going to be a lot more willing to sacrifice to fund the Sheriff’s Office so we can move forward and do a better job. But it’s a matter of proving that we’re going to do the best job we can.”

Seale also wants to pursue grants to provide his deputies with top-notch equipment, including new patrol cars. He said the existing patrol car with the least mileage has around 70,000 miles on it.

“I want to modernize things by getting better equipment so we can better do our job,” he said.

Such equipment includes laptops for patrol vehicles, which would enable deputies to file reports and statements from the scene of a crime rather than driving 40 to 50 miles back to the Sheriff’s Office, he said. With laptops, deputies can perform vehicle and license checks on the spot, rather than having to overload already busy dispatchers.

A pressing priority, Seale said, is re-establishing working relationships with city agencies within the county, as well as other agencies in the state.

Morgan said he’s excited about Seale’s efforts to build relationships between the Sheriff’s Office and surrounding agencies.

“He has a lot of good ideas of how to bring the agencies together and bring the Sheriff’s Department back to the people,” Morgan said. “We just now got out of a meeting with all the chiefs and heads of other Oklahoma agencies regarding what we plan to do to come together and build a better Sheriff’s Office for the people of LeFlore County. We want a Sheriff’s Department the people are proud of.”

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